| The first time I saw MAEVE HIGGINS... |
| Written by Luke Oram |
| Thursday, 14 May 2009 18:44 |
 ...I was watching the comedy gala, eagerly seeking out the holy grail of funny; you know, the joke that leaves you gasping for air, clutching your sides... That golden gag that upgrades you from a polite LOL to a full-blown ROFLcopter. It was the winsome Irish lass that won over in the end. She was bound to though, as she possessed the holy trinity of the comedic advantage; being female, being charming and having an accent. A few days later I was booked in to interview Maeve, which was nice news. I even had a dream about it the night before. In the dream I met Maeve for the interview at a sheltered Amish community, don’t ask me why, it’s a dream. Once I got there, I found Maeve in a state of primadonnic panic; she had been scouring the country for a specific perfume, it was called Marshmellow. Being the good bugger that I was, I dropped all plans for our interview, instead calling all and sundry to track down a vial of Maeve’s precious parfum. (note: you think that’s weird – check THIS out!) One disturbingly accurate dream later, I found myself waiting for Maeve in Sky City’s Rebo café. After a perfunctory greeting, I made my first of what could only be described as an utterly phenomenal tirade of faux pas. LUKE: Good morning Maeve. I had a dream about you last night. MAEVE HIGGINS: Cheque please. The thing about celebrities, even Irish ones, is that they have a somewhat wary relationship with the greater press. When they kick it with an interviewer, the first thing they want to know is whether or not you come in peace. They need to know if they’re in for a friendly yarn, or if this is going to be as stock and grating as their daily wipe with 1-ply. So, needless to say the dream crack came right out of left-field. Sure, I tried to recover... But once that shovel hits the gravel, the only way is down. If you’ve ever seen Maeve’s show, it’s her masterful grasp of the awkward that makes her so hilarious. However, if you’re a magazine writer who has clearly started on the wrong foot, the combination of awkward and awkwarder... make for one hell of a hellbound spiral.  LUKE: What were you doing before you started comedy? MAEVE: Working in a clothes shop. LUKE: So a natural progression then? MAEVE: [ blank stare ] I’m melting. I’m melting. Maeve and I, we had more false starts than my Nissan Primera. It didn’t help that I couldn’t even DRAG MY ASS TO WIKIPEDIA FOR FIVE SECONDS. LUKE: So, what’s the comedy scene in Ireland like? Just you and Ed Byrne holding the fort? MAEVE: Ah, Ed Byrne’s from England. Shoot me. That being said, Maeve was delightful and there were a few times where we managed to break into a run. For example, she thinks New Zealand is similar to Ireland in that people are genuinely friendly... She took the train to Wellington with 100 pensioners, which she loved because they share the same hobbies, knitting and Boggle. She doesn’t read her press, and even if she did, she wouldn’t know what it meant because papers like the Melbourne Age use big words like ‘iconoclastic’ which sound like “some kind of deformity.” I saw Maeve one last time, after dying a horrible death at her feet in Rebo. This time I knew things were gonna go my way. The moment we drove into the Basement’s packed carpark to see her show KITTEN BRIDES, a car pulled out as if on cue, the driver handing me his valid ticket to re-use. It was a Remix Magazine company car, which only increased the good karma. And for your information, I passed the ticket on again to another driver after the show. Up yours, Wilsons Parking. KITTEN BRIDES made everything make sense. Maeve’s self-deprecating tales of home and life were timed and delivered beautifully. The awkward became an art form for Maeve. She intends to kill you with the pause. It worked. I’m pretty sure a lady in the row in front of me actually wet her pants a little. Maeve was unassuming, ultimately charming and actually hilarious. From her domestic experimentations on her cat with the invariable facial features, to the brilliant ‘alternate ending’ vignettes at the end of the show, Maeve was hitting home-runs all over the place. Clearly, I was the dooming factor in the earlier equation, because Maeve’s self-described “hour of one girl blabbing” was observational humour at it’s absolute best – just a lovely Irish bird who loves her ma, deprecates self-deprecation and masters the awkward art of explaining her love for mayonnaise sandwiches. It was holy grail stuff.  |
